A.S.P.C.A. Plans to Stop Killing Strays

By JONATHAN P. HICKS

Published: March 26, 1993

Saying that killing stray dogs and cats has obscured its mission -- and its image -- the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has decided to give up the job in New York City. The decision is likely to leave the city with the unpopular and unpleasant task.

The decision by the A.S.P.C.A., which has collected and destroyed stray animals in New York since 1894, follows a nationwide trend over the last decade in which the society has backed away from killing, which it calls animal control. "As far as we can tell," said Roger Caras, president of the society, "New York is the last major city where animal control is still handled by the A.S.P.C.A."

The society's officials said yesterday that the decision to get out of the euthanasia business was both philosphical and practical. "Philosophically, it's a nightmare to kill 30,000 to 40,000 animals a year," Mr. Caras said. "That's not our mission."

In addition, he said, being perceived as an animal killer has crippled the society's fund-raising and saddled it with an image far different from the one it wants -- that of an animal care and adoption agency. 'Bodies in the Corner'

"We know that we help prevent dogs from getting run over in the street and rabid animals from harming children," Mr. Caras said. "But when it's all said and done, we still have a bunch of bodies in the corner."

Mr. Caras said that there was no way to estimate the job's effect on the organization's fund-raising. He said the society last year raised $21.2 million and that the fund-raising had generally been in that range over the last few years.

But he said: "I do know that we get letters all the time from people who say they won't give money because they accuse us of being the group that kills all the animals," he said. "And that surely doesn't help us."

For New York, whose major health-care reponsibilities are fighting diseases and advocating public health, taking on the job of killing animals is not particularly welcome.

"This is a new area for us," said Norman Steisel, the city's First Deputy Mayor. "We're going to have to feel our way, be careful, as we get into a new business that we've always relied on the A.S.P.C.A. to provide." He said the society had agreed to keep providing the services until the end of next year.

He said the city would consider contracting with a private agency to handle the collection and killing of unwanted stray animals, but added that it was unlikely such an agency could be found. "It doesn't seem there are many humane societies that know how to do this work," he said.

As a consequence, the city will look into either establishing a new agency to handle the task or to have an existing office within city government take it on. "The city has no recourse but to assume the responsibility for doing it," Mr. Steisel said.

Mr. Caras said most other cities had established animal control agencies, hiring the workers who had previously done the job for local nonprofit humane societies. The city agencies then run the pounds and do the killing. New York City has no municipal dog pounds. The A.S.P.C.A. kills the strays it cannot find homes for, using sodium pentothal injections. It also disposes of the bodies. People Don't Realize

"We can't get across to people that something has to happen to these animals, but that's not the business we choose to be in," Mr. Caras said.

The A.S.P.C.A. has two sites -- it calls them shelters, not pounds -- where stray dogs and cats are killed: on East 110th Street in Manhattan and on Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn. Some animals are taken to the A.S.P.C.A. privately or by the police, but the society also has a fleet of vehicles that respond to reports of attacking dogs and other animal hazards.

At the Manhattan shelter last night, dogs howled in the background as two pairs of police officers arrived with tranquilized pit bulls. One had been captured in a raid on a chop shop; another had bitten a neighbor's dog. Both are possible candidates for euthanasia. In a back room, dogs waited out the last 10 days of their lives in gray metal cages. A 4-year-old cocker spaniel named Brandon had bitten his owner, who signed the death order.

The society has proposed keeping the Manhattan site and converting it into another animal adoption center and office for veterinary medicine. The organization proposed turning the Brooklyn shelter over to the city. City Will Need a ShelterXx

Mr. Caras said that the city would need to develop another shelter to accommodate the animals now handled by the Manhattan shelter.

The society said it took in about 56,000 animals last year, most of them dogs and cats. Nearly 10,000 were adopted and the rest were euthanized. The society plans to continue its adoption program.

The A.S.P.C.A. uses 79 workers in the collections and killings, 64 of them members of the Teamsters Union.

Assuming the additional public health care duties is a thorny issue for the city, whose fiscal monitors have suggested that New York City privatize its city hospitals. "It's not the kind of function we wanted to rush into taking on," Mr. Steisel said. "And hopefully it won't cost us any more than it currently costs."

But Mr. Caras said that costs had played a part in the society's decision. Although the city is paying the society $4.5 million for this fiscal year, the A.S.P.C.A. said it loses about $1 million a year on the contract. Mr. Caras said the group had lost more than $6 million doing the job in the last four years.